But as he took his place at the dinner-table he had a curious sensation, as though he had been racked; and, though he laughed and talked, he had an odd feeling all the time as though he were not quite sure of his own identity; and all that evening a few words that Audrey had said haunted him like a refrain:
'If you were my own brother, Michael, I could not want you more—if you were my own brother I could not want you more!'
CHAPTER XXVIII
MICHAEL TURNS OVER A NEW LEAF
'My privilege is to be the spectator of my own life-drama, to be fully conscious of the tragi-comedy of my own destiny; and, more than that, to be in the secret of the tragi-comic itself.
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'Without grief, which is the string of this venturesome kite, man would soar too quickly and too high, and the chosen souls would be lost for the race, like balloons, which, but for gravitation, would never return from the empyrean.'—Amiel.
Michael's return had greatly added to Audrey's happiness. In spite of her lover's society and her natural joyousness of disposition, she had been conscious that something had been lacking to her complete contentment.